


Show Yourself

by Diomedea



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Coming Out, Happy Ending, Other, Self-Discovery, Trans Male Ingrid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:07:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24603649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diomedea/pseuds/Diomedea
Summary: Ingrid realizes, after the war, that she's not actually a girl at all. Dorothea helps.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Ingrid Brandl Galatea
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	Show Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a kink meme prompt [ here](https://3houseskinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/476.html?thread=189660#cmt189660).

Ingrid keeps cutting her hair shorter and shorter over the course of the war. 

She tells herself it’s for practicality in battle. It’s definitely not because every trim makes her happier when she looks in the mirror, or because she secretly thrills at the comments about how having such short hair makes her look like a boy. 

Her armor is molded with breast cups, but she was never too curvy. Without the armor, she can wear enough layers that what curves she does have are invisible. Again, it’s for practicality, not because she smiles inside whenever someone at the market calls her “sir”. 

The war ends. She could grow her hair longer now, start wearing lighter clothing. She doesn’t. She puts away the armor, considers having a new set made that doesn’t look so blatantly feminine.

When Ingrid looks in the mirror, she sees someone who looks like a young man, and that makes her happy. 

After the war, Ingrid resigns her claim to Galatea and joins the knights of House Blaiddyd. The pegasus corps run more feminine, but she’s hardly the only one with a definite masculine inclination. Dorothea comes to visit Fhirdiad sometimes, usually with the Mittelfrank Opera Company, and they fuck. Ingrid’s never been much for romance, or sex; she tells herself it’s because she’s still grieving for Glenn, but she’s not sure she felt any more strongly about Glenn himself. Dorothea is safe, is trusted, is always there to listen to her. Sex with her feels more like an extension of their friendship than the transcendent, ecstatic experience she’s heard it’s supposed to be. 

Dorothea’s the one who first puts the idea into her head, actually. 

“You know,” Dorothea says one evening, lying on Ingrid’s bed, “if I hadn’t seen you naked, I’d never think you were a woman.” 

Ingrid has heard comments of the same sort before. They are not generally meant kindly. But Dorothea is her closest friend, and she clearly doesn’t mean it as the others usually do. 

“I’m a pegasus knight, Dorothea,” she points out. “Pegasi won’t take male riders.”

Dorothea shrugs. “Well, they do sometimes. Most of them will stick with a rider who switches to male.” 

Speaking of pegasi, Ingrid feels like one of them’s just kicked her in the head. “I… _switches to_ male?” 

Dorothea’s expression seems almost to be taking pity on her. “Sometimes what your body says you are doesn’t line up with what your soul says you are. They used to say it was the Goddess letting us ‘share in the wonder of creation’ or some such. I always figured it was just the strangeness of the world at work. People dye their hair to fix it, they wear special shoes to be taller, they change their names and start dressing differently. I know some people who became female at the opera, and I’ve heard of people going the other way.” 

Becoming a man. 

Ingrid still feels like she’s been kicked in the head by a pegasus. She’d always assumed that being female was an unfortunate but immutable fact, that short hair and heavy clothing were the closest she’d ever get.

“How… does that work?” she asks Dorothea. 

“I can’t say exactly,” Dorothea says. “It’s not exactly the sort of thing you ask, you know? But as I understand it, a lot of it is just clothes, and then… well, you either move to the opposite side of the continent and introduce yourself as whatever name you want, or you deal with telling everyone you know.” 

Ingrid tries to keep her curiosity hidden. She’s not entirely sure it works. 

But Dorothea leaves the next morning, and Ingrid starts making discreet inquiries about where she can find a tailor for some specialty undergarments. Something to bind her chest flat. The tailor she ends up speaking with apparently mostly does work for theatrical productions, but as they put it, they’ll take any coin that spends at the market. 

They’re ready in two weeks. Ingrid puts one of them on, and then her lightweight bottom-most shirt, and nearly starts crying. For the first time in years, she’s not buried in layers and still looks like herself. “Is… is there a problem?” the tailor asks, apparently concerned that she’s upset because she’s not happy with the work. 

“No. Not at all,” Ingrid manages. 

With even more discretion, she visits a shop specializing in what the sign outside refers to as “Recreational Devices”. They’re glass imitation penises, held on using a harness system strangely reminiscent of armor. Ingrid purchases one reminiscent in shape of a normal human cock, but made of glass tinted pale blue. Sometimes, alone in her quarters at night, she slides it on and touches it instead of herself. It’s only glass, the echoes of the touch reaching down to her actual body, and yet it feels better than touching herself for real. 

Dorothea visits Fhirdiad again three months later, with the opera company. Ingrid comes to see the performance with Dimitri, and then she and Dorothea go back to Ingrid’s room for sex. 

After the sex, as a lot of their deepest conversations are these days, Ingrid takes a deep breath and steels herself. “Do you remember what we talked about last time you visited?” she says. 

“Hm. Well, we talked about a couple things, I’m pretty sure,” Dorothea says. “Which one would this be?”

Ingrid takes another deep breath. “People who changed genders,” she says all in a rush. 

“Ah. Yes, I remember.” Dorothea doesn’t say anything more. She helped undress Ingrid, though, and saw her in her uniform with Dimitri. 

“I think-“ She falters, then manages to pick up again. “I think I should have been a man.” 

Dorothea nods. She does not seem surprised. “Okay. If that’s what will make you happy, then I’ll do the best I can to help.” 

Ingrid has never said it out loud before. He sobs into Dorothea’s shoulder for what feels like several minutes but probably isn’t before managing to get it under control. Dorothea rubs his hair reassuringly. 

“Have you told anyone else, or am I the first?” Dorothea asks. 

“Not anyone else,” Ingrid says, pulling back a bit. His eyes are blurry with tears. “I thought you’d take it best. Since you said you had friends who’d done the same thing.” 

Dorothea nods. “I don’t think the rest of the Lions would be upset either,” she says gently. “They care about you, and they want you to be happy.” She pauses. “Do you have a different name in mind? I can use something other than Ingrid fr you.” 

Ingrid looks down at the floor. “I was thinking Sigurd.” The story of Sigurd is a legend from the north of Faergus, a hero who could slay dragons and speak to birds. 

“Sigurd,” Dorothea says, tasting the name. She smiles again, now suddenly almost predatory. “You know, I’m going to be pretty busy the rest of the time we’re in Faergus. But you’re so handsome, I bet I could make arrangements to slip away a couple more nights… Sigurd.” 

Sigurd has actually never felt lust like this before. It’s like some otherworldly force driving him towards Dorothea, who squeaks in surprise as he kisses her and then starts kissing back just as hard. Glenn is the furthest possible thing from his mind right now. 

“Can I try something?” he asks. 

“What do you have in mind?” Dorothea asks, sounding vaguely amused. Instead of answering with words, Sigurd reaches into the table where he keeps the glass cock and its accessories, and shows it to Dorothea. She smiles brightly, although she seems slightly surprised. “Oh, that looks like _fun_.” 

Dorothea has apparently seen them before, and is more than happy to show Sigurd how to make it work with two people involved. Sliding his cock into her feels better than sex ever has before.

It is, in fact, transcendent and ecstatic. 

They carry on like that for a few weeks. Sigurd is Sigurd when alone with Dorothea and Ingrid with everyone else. But the time comes for the Mittelfrank Opera Company to leave Fhirdiad, and Sigurd realizes that once Dorothea leaves, if he doesn’t tell anyone, he’ll be stuck as Ingrid until the next time she visits. 

“I’m going to tell the rest of the Lions,” he tells Dorothea one night as they’re laying in his bed. She’s leaving in another week, and probably won’t be back for at least six months.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Dorothea says, running a hand along his cheek. There’s a few areas that he doesn’t like being touched; with trial and error, they’ve learned most of them. “I don’t think they’ll be upset or reject you, I really don’t.” 

Felix and Sylvain are coming to visit the capital in two days. Mercedes’s school for Duscur children is doing quite well. Annette is teaching at the School of Sorcery. Ashe is running an inn that specializes in Duscur food, which Dedue speaks very highly of. 

Sigurd requests that they all meet up at Ashe’s inn - “a class reunion”, he calls it. Dimitri agrees immediately, and Sigurd spends the next two days preparing and worrying. His pegasus has, as Dorothea suggested, not apparently noticed the change; she flares her wings in happiness when she sees him, as always, and takes carrots from his hand. If things go badly enough, Sigurd thinks, he’ll run away with her. Dorothea mentioned moving to the opposite side of the continent and just introducing yourself however you wanted as an option. 

It’s after an hour of eating - the food is every bit as good as Dedue had suggested, and Ashe is getting quite embarrassed by all the compliments - that Sigurd finally works up the nerve to make the announcement. 

He stands, and immediately has the attention of the rest of the Lions. They’re in a private-ish room in the back. “I… have something I wanted to tell you,” he says. 

There’s an awkward silence, broken by Felix snapping “Well?” 

Sigurd takes a deep breath. “I want to be a man. I want my name to be Sigurd, and I want you to call me ‘he’.”

The table is silent for a terrifying moment, until Dedue says “That is simple enough. Is that everything?” 

“Yes,” Sigurd says, collapsing back down into his chair. “You’re not upset or anything.” 

“Dedue’s right, it’s simple enough,” Ashe says. “Of course I’ll call you Sigurd. It’s clearly important to you, and it’ll make you happy.” 

The rest of the table nods in agreement. Even Felix seems to have momentarily reined in his sharp tongue. Sigurd has to fight down the urge to start crying again, just like when he told Dorothea. “Thank you,” he says instead. “Thank you.” 

“You’re our friend,” Sylvain says breezily. “This doesn’t change that.” Felix nods in agreement. 

Dimitri nods. “I can find a new position for you, if being a pegasus knight is no longer suitable,” he offers. 

Sigurd shakes his head. “No, it’s fine. The pegasi don’t seem to mind, at least.” 

Mercedes slides over closer to him as the table resumes some chatter, and says quietly, “If you want some… magical help with looking male, Annette and I may be able to assist. Of course I don’t want to pressure you, but just let you know it’s available.” 

Sigurd smiles. He catches Annette’s eye; she gives him a thumbs up. 

Before long, they’re packing up. Felix, Sylvain, Dimitri, Dedue, and Sigurd are heading back to the castle; Ashe will remain at the inn; Annette will return to the School of Sorcery, and Mercedes to her school for Duscur children. “Come _on_ , Sigurd,” Felix calls as he’s on his way out the door. “The work’s not going to do itself.” 

Sigurd catches a glimpse of himself in a glass window. He looks like himself now, and he uses his own name, and he is alive in ways he would never have imagined. 

“Coming, Felix,” he calls, and runs to catch up.


End file.
